CAIRO — Egypt’s Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Mohamed Abdel Aty announced in a July 24 press release that an agreement had been reached with the European Union (EU) to finance an irrigation-development project and improve the country's water-management system. The Egyptian government has been seeking to expand cooperation with international partners to address the threats to Egyptian water security.

Egypt suffers from water scarcity, with a water deficit of 20 billion cubic meters (16.2 million acre feet) a year. The government has been trying to overcome the increasing pressure on water resources with an emergency plan that runs through 2021. The plan includes measures aimed at increasing water-use efficiency, reusing treated wastewater, expanding water desalination in coastal cities and reducing cultivation of water-intensive crops, such as rice.

Iman al-Sayed, head of the Planning Department at the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, told Al-Monitor, “The emergency plan that the government is now implementing, in coordination with the Ministries of Housing, Agriculture and Local Communities, aims at dealing quickly with the deteriorating water situation within the framework of the National Water Resources Plan until 2037.”

She said, “In response to the deteriorating water situation, the Ministry of Irrigation has been cooperating with the EU on several projects, most importantly the draft of the National Water Resources and Irrigation Plan for Egypt, 2017-2037, as well as projects using modern irrigation systems and water treatment in water drainage systems.”